Spain will increase its efforts to cooperate with developing Latin American countries on trade issues, after signing an agreement with the United Nations on Thursday.

Spain has agreed to form a Framework Cooperation Agreement with UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) that will increase the nation's technical cooperation activities with Latin America. The agreement will expand the work of various Spanish institutions with UNCTAD.

Spain is the only donor to UNCTAD operations that has a special plitical relationship with the Latin American region and a deep understanding of development issues there, according to a released statement from UNCTAD.

Spanish Minister of External Relations and Cooperation Miguel Angel Moratinos and UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi signed the deal at the 53rd annual UNCTAD conference in Geneva.

Moratinos said that Spain was convinced that effective multilateralism could help to rectify some of the imbalances caused by globalization. He urged for the international trading community to evenly distribute benefits.

He took the opportunity to urge all Governments to make a renewed commitment to meeting the Millennium Development Goals.